scope for imagination
by colourmayfade
Summary: Roland has a fruitful imagination, and that just might be exactly what a queen needs to get her through dark, lonely times. Dimples Queen, OQ. Missing Year, mostly.


**scope for imagination**

.

No one can begrudge a lonely child a head full of fancies, especially not one raised amidst a band of thieves in an Enchanted realm.

It is only natural that Roland would find his own way to fill the long days that his papa and most of the camp spent away. Gone in cryptic expeditions that had them coming back with their pockets full of the most dazzling prizes, which flowed out of the camp just as quickly as they arrived — never fully explained.

It's to be expected that a little boy would wonder at such compelling stories his uncles would often bring back, of smartly evading black guards and bravely crossing the brambles and thorns of the Dark Forest, and make them his own.

And so no one blinks an eye upon finding the lad holding a twig and waving it with obvious purpose against nothing at all; they only smile and maybe say, "Might I ask what this poor branch has done to you?"

And there's nothing to find strange if the answer to be had is, "It's my sword!" along with an impatient explanation that the thin air is actually a vile guard or a sheriff or any equally treacherous character to be fought justly.

(Less easy to understand is the far away gaze of a queen lost to her thoughts in the middle of breakfast, the pursed lips and quivering jaw that have no reason for being, the sudden anguished look that will seem to come out of nowhere and take hold in the most unexpected of times.)

The new castle provides entertainment enough, but Roland's explorations are limited to the narrow boundaries of a few rooms — the full expanse of a palace home to a previously Evil, now decidedly surly but debatably harmless, Queen not being quite child-proof. No one is allowed out into the woods, not unless on some kind of mission, and even the gardens are open for only a few hours in odd days, too wide and open to be kept safe for long stretches of time.

Not without reason, Roland's imagination quickly turns the place into a prison, its large rooms into cavernous lairs of scary beasts. He begins to battle against his bedtime and as much as Robin tries to soothe, the boy still asks for their tent in the forest, says the castle is too quiet and that he wants the crickets and owls, all the fairy sounds of the woods, to lull him to sleep.

With dark circles under his eyes, Robin quietly relates this new behaviour to Tuck a few days after it starts. "Roland hides under our bed and pretends it's a dungeon," he recounts in the low tone of a confession. "That I must break in and take him home."

But for all the old Friar's advice, only one thing helps: a small music box, mysteriously discovered one evening right by the foot of the very bed Roland ducks under every night. It is delicately carved, made of timber and copper, with a ratchet lever in the shape of lion on its right side. And a most curious feature: instead of music, the sound it produces is more akin to a melody of the nightfall in the forest - a symphony of hoots and chirpings and rustling leaves.

While the father finds the bauble almost oddly opportune, the toddler takes the discovery in stride and quickly comes up with a extraordinary story for its origin without questioning the convenience of the trinket or why it should be sighted just when it is, after so many evenings hiding beneath the mattress.

Realities are often made of less substantial stuff. Children have much more important things to dream up, after all.

.

.

.

Regina is focused on cutting just the right amount of mandrake needed to replenish her stock, pocket knife chopping deftly into the roots, and perhaps she brings the blade down a little more menacingly than entirely necessary — but as long as the thief is going to linger there, watching her, let him have a show worth staying for. Let him wonder what kind of potions could be made with such ugly, wrinkly sprouts (none too harmful, the herb's powers being more restorative than pernicious, but Locksley doesn't have to know that).

She fills a glass jar with the plant, careful not to lose any of it as mandrake takes much too long to grow and these days they need all of the healing artifices that they can store; seeing an added benefit to such meticulousness if it keeps Robin's presence in the greenhouse unacknowledged.

By now she knows better than to expect him to be able take a hint and leave, though, and so she finally asks, "May I help you?"

It's a mix of irritation and indifference, all packed into one conversationally posed question, a blend Regina has long perfected. She diligently maintains the pretense of going on with her business, doesn't so much as look up, hoping that this, at least, will keep Robin at distance.

No such luck to be had in this realm, however. "I'd like a word with you, if you have a moment."

"Well, I've only got a kingdom to run and a wicked witch to defeat so…" She clucks her tongue in her mouth, raises both brows for good effect as she turns to approach one of the shelves opposite to where he is standing. "My afternoon should be free."

There's no need to look at him to know that he smiles at her, somehow she just knows he does, and it's exasperating.

"I thought you'd like to know that Roland has your present," he follows, "but perhaps I was wrong."

She's started plucking at asphodels, but her hands still, distracted mid-task. "I… have no idea what you're talking about."

"Oh, haven't you?" Regina hears, could almost say she feels, Robin step forward, around the table that cuts across the middle of the greenhouse and closer to her. "So you have nothing to do with this treasure map my son has quite auspiciously come across, then? Less than a week after he's started running around telling anyone who'll give him an ear that he is to be a pirate, of all things."

Not willing to deny outright, she merely shrugs. "I can't think of any reason why you'd think I'd have something to do with it. This castle certainly stores all kinds of useless objects —"

"And yet Roland conveniently only seems to chance upon the harmless trinkets," Robin cuts in, her evasion having turned his initially diverted inquiries into something more fiery. "A treasure hunt inside the palace and one that I've noticed leads only to a handful of rooms, keeps far from the armoury and any such places that one might argue could be unsafe for a child to explore alone."

His voice, which had been growing as he argued his case, becomes softer now; loses breath but not intensity. "A timely finding, isn't it, Your Majesty."

It's this lower tone that pulls her gaze to him, to her immediate regret. His eyes, heavy and knowing, anchor her own and she's trapped now with nothing to shield her in a room made of glass.

Regina could assure him that Roland will find naught at the end of his treasure hunt but silly baubles for playthings, but she's well aware that Robin's approach would have been much different if he believed otherwise. What she doesn't know how to tell him, _I didn't want Roland to fear this castle, to come to loathe it_ , how to spell out: _as I once did_. Still, whatever of it passes in her expression is easily caught by him, making him sigh.

For once, he is the one to back away from her.

"I will say," Robin starts, like some kind of afterthought, "it took me longer than I care to admit to notice the walls of our bedchambers had turned from blue to forest green. Or that Roland had new shoes."

The comment makes Regina smirk privately because, well, the thief _would_ be incompetent like that.

Moving toward the table, Robin runs a hand along the edges of the cutting board she'd just been using. "And the music box, that was clever. The only one I've ever encountered to sound like that."

She is the one watching him now, irresistibly drawn to the breadth of his shoulders that are rigid with tension. "Roland sleeps through the night now. Says he can pretend we're back in the camp," he tells her, almost regretful, and his shoulders sag for a fleeting moment. "At times I ask myself whether I've made the right choices for him. I… never expected to raise him without Marian."

It's confessional, tired.

"I've made all kinds of mistakes," Regina finds herself blurting out in return. "Raising my son."

Robin angles his neck to look at her, surprised that she would ever admit to that, she thinks, but he's badly informed — it's hardly secret. Anyone who was at Storybrooke would know, and attest to it. Regina steps forward until she is standing beside him.

"I almost lost Henry because of my own," she pauses, stares down at Robin's hand inches away from hers, pressed flat against the smooth surface of the table, "my own poor choices. I don't know that I'll ever be able to make up for them."

His nod is small, almost imperceptible; he shifts his hardened eyes toward some undefined point outside of the enclosed garden and _oh_ , but he's got it all wrong.

"Whatever mistakes you've made, and I'm sure they've been _many_ ," Regina says, choosing to needle him if only for the habit of it. Robin chuckles, and it gives her a feeling that perhaps they are moving back into familiar territory. "You're not wrong for wanting to protect your child. Not with someone as deranged as my sister out there. This castle is safest place for your son, for now."

She's hardly able to say whether it's by her own initiative or his that they shoulders rub together, whether his upper arm brushes against hers or if it's the other way around. It's all to the same result: a strange burning in her gut, her senses heightened without a reason to show for it.

Regina breaks Robin's gaze just moments before he says, softly, "with you here, I believe it is."

The words have time to settle in, dosing the space around them with something thicker than air, making the world just a smudge more complicated then it had been before.

But then Robin drums his fingers on the table surface, seeming to shred much of the depth that had been there only one seconds before and, just as quickly, becoming all ill-advised astuteness again.

"Well, I'm thoroughly relieved we've cleared this up. You know," he says, a touch sly. "If you _had_ had something to do with these little gifts someone's so anonymously placed in Roland's path, I'd be obliged to thank you. For taking care of my boy."

It's an out, and one she's more than willing to take. "And I'd be forced to concede that perhaps a thief can observe a subtle gesture."

Robin's smirk etches a dimple on his features, granting him his generally infuriating countenance once more. He takes a few steps back whilst facing her.

"A distressing proposition, to be certain." Throws in a mock bow. "As you were, milady."

Regina sneers, attention drawn back to her asphodels. But as he's exiting the conservatory, Robin pauses as if he's had a curious last minute thought. "The new boots Roland's found are rather useful — what are those soles?"

Regina's reply is automatic: "They're rubber. It's a material we had…"

"Right," Robin assents brightly as Regina trails off, having admitted to more than she'd meant to.

His final grin is victorious, catching; Regina will just have to pretend she didn't catch a glance of it just before he left.

.

.

.

The knocks are so soft, and the palace doors so very thick, that Regina just narrowly hears them. It's an entirely unexpected intrusion, just as she's finishing what must be at least the 6th book of hexes she's read that has provided no answer whatsoever to their wicked witch problem.

Her moods have taken a steep turn for the worse, of this there's been no secret made around the castle, and no guard or servant has dared to disturb her in days; they lower their eyes as she moves past them in the great hall, scamper out of her way like mice in the hallways. Even Snow seems to have brought her pestering down a notch or twenty with Henry's birthday fast approaching. She's taken to her chambers and everyone has been all too glad to leave her to them.

As she wonders who could possibly be bold enough, intuition crosscuts her line of thought and she is filled with a precise inkling of _just_ who could be that dumb.

She opens the door, barely a crack, with her face set in an imperious scowl and a few choice words ready to tumble from her lips and ward off any stray thieves who might be found on the other side, but instead of a smirk she is met with… nothing.

"My majesty," comes a small voice and Regina looks down to find dark gleaming eyes looking back at her. She's so surprised that she fails to react, giving the boy time to continue, "I am Sir Roland of Locksley from… the order of Camp Knights."

Regina's mouth falls open into an 'o'.

"We p'tect the queens of this forest from the great big dragon," Roland says, a hand raised to his forehead to remove a deviant curl fallen over his eyes. "The dragon locks them in a dungeon…" his voice raising theatrically, "and _eats_ them!"

There's a pause, Regina not knowing quite how to respond to such a grand statement or whether she should ask the boy where his father is, and Roland watches her expectantly for some seconds before growing impatient.

"Majesty," he urges with a whisper. "Is the d'agon chasing you?"

"I…" Regina hesitates. "I suppose it is."

"Yes," Roland tells her with approval, grinning openly at her response. "Follow me, Majesty. We can hide in the cave."

"The…?" Regina starts but the boy's already sauntering off down the hallway and Regina can do nothing but follow, bewildered, behind his assured steps. It's then that she notices, with a curious smile, that he holds a sack in one hand and that the treasure map she's forged is tucked into his trousers.

The cave, it turns out, is a small dark room that's been abandoned since Leopold's reign, used to store presents that the royals and nobles of neighbouring realms bestowed upon him in their visits. Regina's almost surprised to find it standing, as if the king's death should have wiped him and all his belongings from existence.

Roland's sack is really a bag of goods — stolen goods, Regina suspects — from the kitchen. The bag itself, well-worn faded cloth and perfectly sized for a lucrative heist, she guesses must belong to the boy's unseemingly father.

"It's a feast," Roland announces and that is what it becomes.

(Why, just because there is a dragon looming after you, that does not mean you can't take some time to enjoy a lavish last meal. Arguably, it is the one thing you _must_ do.)

A portmanteau lined with gemstones is covered with a coral-colored mantle and becomes the table for the feast. There's no need to imagine the tableware, Leopold's storeroom has more than enough china sets to allow them to pick and choose.

Regina uses only the littlest bit of magic to dispel the gathered dust from the items they'll use and to light a few candles, placed well away from the boy's reach.

Grapes and cherries are set down, as well as scones and cakes and even some profiteroles, the cook's ambitious endeavour that has apparently gained the Merry Men's esteem. Roland's sweet tooth is obvious, and Regina is careful not to let him eat too many pastries; reminds him that a true knight must share his feast with all the other knights. And speaking of other knights, where might that older Locksley one be, she asks, and quickly figures out from Roland's explanation that this curious notion of his of rescuing the queen has a something of a push from Robin.

She'll scold the thief later, she decides and bites at a piece of her scone with that much more gusto.

Soon make believe takes a turn and she's telling the toddler about lions and rhinoceros from a distant place called Africa ( _Af'ica_ , tongue tripping over his Rs, _like_ _Ag'abah,_ Roland wonders, and not quite, _a different land but just as far,_ Regina tells him). And maybe Roland's not a knight after all; maybe he is a brave pathfinder in a distant realm, but Regina is still a queen.

Finding an old record book, Regina rips out a handful of papers and tries to fold them into submission — it can't be _that_ long since Henry was Roland's age and she made little paper animals which he delighted in playing with. But no amount of her folding will make a wrinkled paper turn into a giraffe and after some attempts she's forced to concede that perhaps her origami skills were inescapably tied to the instruction book.

"Majesty, you're bad at this," Roland announces with a giggle.

It's well over an hour into the child's play and without her taking note of it, her smiles have started appearing freely and often. Now she arches one eyebrow, waves a hand and there — a piece of paper becomes an uncanny giraffe, spots and all.

"I'm good at magic," she says with yet another of those smiles, getting a beaming grin in return.

Later, when the play pretend is over and they've put everything back in its rightful place, Regina picks up a tired Roland in her arms and takes him down the empty stairs toward guest rooms currently occupied by Robin's troop of outlaws and other less than cherished patrons.

An odd sort of melancholy falls over Regina, and she even allows the boy to enjoy one last bit of pastry as a result.

"This…" Roland says, looking remarkably thoughtful for one speaking through a mouthful of lemoncake. "Is the best p'etend I had since we moved to this castle."

Regina hides a small smile behind Roland's curls, and thinks she would be inclined to agree.

.

.

.

"Imagine this is," Roland demands and it is the one kind of command Regina's willing to obey.

In the months to follow, the little dark eyed boy becomes curious about the son Regina talks about in bits and pieces and any smoke in the distant horizon, any story Roland hears can set the ground for a wild scenario involving Henry.

Regina doesn't mind; in fact she discovers that speaking to Roland about Henry isn't quite as painful as talking about him to anyone else. With Roland's help, the tug in her heart is bearable when she tries to imagine how her little prince is faring, what he could be doing right at this very moment.

"Supp'se Henry is fighting…" Roland begins to envision, but comes across a strange thought. "Are there og'es in your realm?"

"There are no ogres back there," Regina replies, not bothering to correct him. The other world, well, it's more her realm than any other has ever been, anyway. "But I think the only fighting Henry is doing at this moment is against his exams," she says, remembering almost with some pleasure that it must be only a couple weeks before before school's out for her son.

 _"_ 'xams? What's that?" Roland questions and it isn't long before Regina is explaining what a vacation is and the two of them are pondering all the things Henry will do with his. Perhaps Emma'll take him to that comic book shop he'd always wanted to go in New York, Regina thinks to herself.

Maybe in some mysterious way, there's still a part of their life together in her son.

(It's a curiously good imagining.)

At the same time, in an entirely different realm, Henry is quite spectacularly beating the last monster before moving on to the next phase in his video game. Then, for no reason that he can think of — his previous grades already have him passing without much effort and it's not like his mom is particularly hard on him about studying —, a tug of guilt catches hold of him and Henry thinks maybe he'll sit a couple of hours to revise his textbook.

His comic books stay back in his room, laying forgotten on his bedside table. If someone were to ask him he wouldn't quite be able to explain, but in the past few months he's lost some interest in them.

Something feels different about the stories; almost like something is missing when he reads them.

(A secret about imaginings: sometimes — although in ways we don't always expect — they are not very far from the truth.)

.

.

.

At Storybrooke there is a whole wide world of pretending and imagining and supposing to be done.

It's easy for Regina to understand that in a way, imagination helps Roland cope with the move, with his world turned on its head; just as it helped her get through the year they spend back in the Enchanted Forest. And by now his world has been turned around entirely too often, so much more than more than a boy his age should ever have to deal with.

Robin grows worried, sometimes, at how often his son makes a mess of the living room — blankets strewn everywhere, odd trinkets taken out of place and stored as treasures behind a fort made out of a pile of comforters. Regina on the other hand is more burdened by the nights when Roland insists he wants to sleep outside in the woods, wondering if something deeply embedded will never allow him to get used to the move.

When she finally shares this concern with Robin, he gets a strange look on his face. A frown accompanied by a shake of his head, and then he tells her in a strangely passionate tone that Roland has more now than he ever did; not because he's got a roof over his head or because of all the facilities this world provides, but because he has _her_ and Henry and a whole new family to add to his old one. This is what Roland needs most, Robin assures her, and he would change realms a thousand times if it he had to, to have _this_.

Everything else just takes some getting used to, he promises.

("And if Roland does miss the Forest," Robin says, pressing her against him and placing a kiss on her brow, "I'll be quite happy to take him, and Henry if you'll allow, camping in the woods for a day or two."

Her smile is small but wondrous, brushing against his jaw as she blinks away the suggestion of tears beginning to form in her eyes. "Only Roland and Henry?"

Robin laughs with this chin up and Regina watches the way his throat muscles ripple, suddenly tempted to rest her lips there.

"Why, milady. Are you saying you'd _like_ to go camping with a lowly thief such as myself?"

"I don't see why not," she tells him, fully simpering now, taking pleasure in the way his fingers dig harder into her waist as she leans in further to whisper in his ear. "I seem to enjoy doing all kinds of things with a lowly thief such as yourself.")

Eventually Roland discovers that Storybrooke has certain upsides, ice-cream and fries among them, plus one deciding advantage over the Enchanted Forest: Storybrooke has Henry.

Under Henry's charge and with his skilled imagination, a twig ceases to be only a sword to become a beautiful blade adorned with pearls from the deepest of seas, a heirloom of the last of the Merkings. A new winter jacket is really a knight's shield, and the brand visible over the right chest is not a brand at all — each embroidered letter is, actually, the proud mark of a battle fought and won.

In Henry's stories, an old book does not only tell a handful of crooked fairy tales but carries within a secret magic, a magic that can bring princesses back from far away realms, that can awaken a prince's lost memory.

That can revive the flimsy flicker of hope when all seems lost.

.

.

.

It's a recipe to give even the most unprolific of minds the wings to soar: head on feathery pillows and wrapped in a cozy quilt, town lights and stars shining out the window and the softly-spoken sounds of a new story in your ear.

Roland's mind, not fruitless in the least, wanders — far away and very close all at once. He is tucked snugly under the crook of Regina's arm, curling and uncurling the ends of her hair around the fingers of one hand, and Regina can tell he's been lost to her words for a while because he does not object in the slightest once she abruptly stops reading.

She closes the book, freeing one hand to tickle the little boy's rib. "Roland," she calls, teasing the syllable of the name, "were you listening to the story?"

A dimpled grin makes an appearance, honest and cheeky. "Uh-uh."

Regina shakes her head as she chuckles around a knowing _ah_. "Then I think it's high time this brave knight went to sleep," she tells him with a smile, hands already moving across the quilt to smooth it and tuck him in further.

Right on cue comes the protest she's heard so often since Roland and his father have lived in the mansion. "Not yet," the boy denies, though not in the usual slipshod sleepy tone. This time, his voice is quite alive and alert.

"Not yet?"

"No," Roland agrees and cuddles in closer.

Unsure, Regina wonders if perhaps she's made a bad choice, tonight's tale having been one to include dishonest goblins and brute ogres; thinks perhaps the book had been too scary for the boy even though he's quickly getting older. Shifting her angle to catch a glimpse of Roland's face, however, all she sees are upturns of a soft, content smile.

It isn't long before the silence breaks and Roland speaks out her name in a question, _Regina?_

To which she answers with a simple question of her own, _yes?_

"Pretend you are my mamma," Roland says, at once a plea and a claim that strikes at her with such a force that she is not the least able to stop her breath from stuttering. "Pretend this is our house since always."

The time it takes to gently turn his chin up toward her is enough to unravel the knot hooked around her chest. It is bubbling warmth weaved with uncertainty and doubt, a combination reminiscent of what unexpected happinesses have often meant for her — eventual heartbreak.

Not anymore and not by any kind of unescapable destiny and not if she can fight it, she reminds herself in the beat required to regain her composure.

Roland's dark eyes are innocent, steady on hers as she tells him that it doesn't matter if she gave birth to him or not, whether they have always lived under the same roof or even in the same realm; with some things there's no need to play-pretend.

Some things are real as long as you hold them true in your heart.

.

.

.

 _fin_

thanks for reading, and would be lovely to hear your thoughts about it!


End file.
